AOK Basic Skills Project
Portland, Maine
E: kirkjohnb5@gmail.com
W: www.aokbasicskills.gratis
2021 -11-20
Re: Workshop – “The Internet, the CEFR, and Learning Styles & Strategies for English Teachers Grades 1-12”
Dear Superintendent of Schools:
I’m a semi-retired ESOL teacher over 65 and lived in Ecuador for over 10 years before recently relocating to Portland, Maine in the U.S. I am the director of AOK, a charitable educational effort and my retirement project that was connected to my English school in Quito. It isn’t an organization. AOK specializes in teaching basic skills.
During the past three years, I have written 20 AOK Life Skill Workshops and before the Pandemic presented many of them throughout the Ecuadorian Sierra. Before COVID, AOK received 1,000 informal and anonymous, evaluations. By relating its workshops to the U.N. Global Goals, AOK has been able to better inspire the participants who have attended to learn and grow educationally and to accomplish their learning objectives.
Workshop summary
The workshop takes 50 minutes and includes two files with free English language learning websites for the primary and secondary levels. Through Power Point, I first explain how to connect the CEFR standards or basic skills objectives with free online materials and students’ English texts, and then if there is time and interest, I explain how to use different learning styles and strategies in the classroom with the texts.
So in the workshop I can (1) introduce teachers to free materials from the Internet and how to use them with their classes and (2) help them determine how to teach learning strategy skills in daily lessons, or just focus on (1).
Perhaps there will be an opportunity for a second workshop to review (1) and do (2). There is a series of sheets to support the workshop instruction and a detailed bibliography. Depending on the time allowed, there are a number of possibilities for follow-up activities, and I would be happy to work with the workshop manager on this.
The long-term purpose of the workshop
The long-term purpose of the workshop is to encourage the UN to provide an independent language learning (ILL) website that provides language training and lists free, annotated websites to facilitate it. The UN would do this in support of its 2030 Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education.
I will ask the workshop host if the participants could take part in the project by completing voluntary and anonymous workshop evaluations. If not, I would still appreciate the opportunity to present the workshop to your group.
Registration
Because the language study materials that I use are written for non-commercial purposes, I do not charge for the presentation…
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
John B. Kirk, Director
E: kirkjohnb5@gmail.com